At $3,250, Olympic hockey tix trump the Super Bowl

By Annalyn Censky, staff reporterFebruary 12, 2010: 3:26 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Fancy a last-minute ticket to the opening ceremonies? Get ready to fork over about a thousand bucks. How about a glimpse at Shaun White at Wednesday's halfpipe finals? It'll set you back another $1,400. And as for rink-side seats at the men's ice hockey final game... those will cost you more than this year's Super Bowl tix -- a whopping $3,250 or more.

That is, if you can get them. Tickets to the most popular Olympic events are already sold out and the only way to get them is through alternate marketplaces like online fan-to-fan resale or auction sites.

Prices for such tickets are skyrocketing this year, said Christian Anderson, a spokesperson for ticket search site FanSnap.com. The site tracked the average asking prices for Olympic tickets on 12 sites, including eBay, GreatSeats.com and RazorGator.com.

Then FanSnap stacked them against the ticket prices for the Super Bowl and the World Series. Turns out, the Olympic Games beat both major sporting events.

Among the "scalping" sites, World Series tickets averaged $1,600, and tickets to the Super Bowl rang in around $3,000 on Jan. 25 -- the day after the AFC and NFC championship games. In contrast, tickets to the hottest Olympic event this year, the men's hockey gold medal game, are averaging about $3,250. That's nearly twice the price of resale tickets to the Stanley Cup.

That's surprising, Anderson said, not only because the Super Bowl traditionally claims the most expensive ticket prices, but because, when it comes to the hockey final, "we don't even know who the two teams are yet!"

Perhaps it's Canada's love for hockey?

The cost of those same hockey tickets, sold through official vendors, was originally about $332 to $734.

In Buffalo, New York, the city is selling vacant homes for a $1 to those who are willing to fix them up and live in them for a few years. But as many buyers soon find out, the cost to renovate these super cheap properties can quickly add up. More